According to a new TechCrunch report, citing the information shared by Facebook's Frederic Wolens, all the Facebook users in North America - to be soon followed by the rest of the users worldwide - are being moved to the HTTPS Internet connection.

The disclosure by Wolens implies that while the Facebook users will gain from the increased security provided by the HTTPS Internet connection, as against the HTTP connection, the mentioned move will also marginally slow down Web browsing.

With Facebook now in the process of making HTTPS - the `S' in which stands for `secure' - the default setting for its more than 1 billion users, most online shoppers would probably be aware of the HTTPS connection, which they may have seen on online retail sites while entering a password or credit card details.

Since Facebook will make the HTTPS connection a default setting - which can be opted out - for all its users, all those Facebook members who have not selected the HTTPS option will soon have the benefit of increased security, though it will result in slightly slower browsing.

Noting that, although the Facebook move in the direction of HTTPS connection may potentially "slow down connections only slightly," Wolens said that Facebook has "deployed significant performance enhancements to our load balancing infrastructure to mitigate most of the impact of moving to HTTPS, and will be continuing this work as we deploy this feature."